Hobbies

Stephen Gelber is professor of history and chair of the History Department at Santa Clara University. He is the author of Black Men and Businessmen: The Growing Awareness of a Social Responsibility and Saving the Earth: The History of a Middle-Class Millenarian Movement.

"Gelber has uncovered an astonishing array of writings -- advice literature, popular magazines, newspaper articles -- on hobiies... Gelber takes an unusal and little studied topic -- the history of hobbies -- and shows us its depth, its breadth and its importance. This is a fine book, one that reminds us that the study of leisure is also the study of work, gender, and culture." -- Cindy S. Aron, American Historical Review

• Preface Introduction: Context and Theory Section 1: Hobbies as a Category 1: Occupations for Free Time Section 2: Collecting 2: The Collectible Object 3: Collectors 4: Constructing a Collector's Market 5: Deconstructing a Collector's Market Section 3: Handicrafts 6: Crafts, by Tools, and Gender in the Nineteenth Century 7: Expanding the Boundaries of Crafts 8: Home Crafts in Hard Times 9: Kits: Assembly as Craft 10: Do-It-Yourself: Expected Leisure Conclusion Index